Monday, August 15, 2016

-The place was martiallawville two thousand and oneand everywhere I looked I saw people with gunsstanding on the corner in uniformsfull of torture devices for if you stray from the normthey'll stop you over here and they'll stop you over there they'll stop you anywhere and they won't even careas they shake you down and throw you on the ground put their foot on you and then kick you around they'll punch you and they'll beat you till you're almost deadI couldn't take it no more and so I saidNo Police State. yeah, that's right, no policy state. I screamed No Police State. No Police State.

And so, I left the street and then I went to the store but as I walked through the metal detectorI could not get through because this man at the doorin a uniform called security with a criminal record worser than you and mehe took my bags and my belongings tooand he said the words we are surveiling youwith plain clothes spies and close circuit camerasinspection devices and ten way mirrorsand so I started shopping from aisle to aislebut I could hear them all the whilethey murmured, they whispered and then they saidcome with us your time is at handto be mocked, scourged, tried, tempted and afflictedand crucified and persecuted in this wilderness I said to them deliver me I did not do a thing they said I did and that was it and so I screamedNo Police State. yeah, that's right, no policy stateI screamed No Police State. No Police State.

And so, I went home and I felt secureuntil the evil knocked at my door it was a legion of men it was an army and they called themselves the authority who were concerned for my safety so they said to me can we see some ID to use against you as you will seeour king he owns the land and he even owns youso this is what we're gonna dothey trashed my place, they tore it upside downthey took everything and then they threw it around then they wanted to put me under their carecause it looked like I could not take care of my affairs so I took no further thought for what I was gonna saycause they were gonna search and seize me anywayand so I screamed, No Police State yeah that's right, no policy stateI screamed No Police State. No Police State.

The environment in NYC, and especially AlphaBet City and surrounding areas, was drastically different. The city had made it clear, its underclasses were to be disowned. Tent Cities had sprung up in local parks. Warehoused and abandoned buildings were siezed and turned into squats by neighborhood residents who had had enough with the empty myth of Upward Mobility and Trickledown Economics. People carved out livings for themselves, however spartan, to a degree and scope that today would be seen as unfathomable.

It was "necessary," then, for the city to at once save face, and to punish such outright acts of autonomy. And so, after a "mini riot" staged by the NYPD in order to gauge public opinion, the full force of the Men in Blue was let loose on denizens of Tompkins Square Park, who had commited the unforgivable crime of having nowhere else to go, and, by default, on every human being found out past an arbitrary midnight curfew.

The tidal wave of subsequent complaints against the 9th Precinct, who had conscripted personnel from other precincts throughout the city, pale in comparison the the actual bloodshed of that long, hot night. Police on foot, on horseback, and in helicopters descended on the homeless, on visitors to the area, and on those who had just stepped out for some fresh air, Batons were swung, bones were broken, and many were bloodied by individuals who feared no reprisals for their actions, because their badges and identification had been blacked out. Imagine a sea of faceless blue berserkers, issued a simple order to use whatever force deemed necessary to cleanse the late night city streets, and you will only come close to the reality.

The Tompkins Square Park Police Riots were but one in a series of falling dominoes in a process of econimic and cultural whitewashing, which continues, in earnest, to this day. The shortsighted will say, what else is new; neighborhoods always change. But this change is far from organic. When an invading "culture" displaces the life's blood of a formerly vibrant, inclusive and diverse community, it is nothing short of an act of War.

COME ON DOWN to Tompkins Square Park on August 6th and 7th, and shake hands with the ghosts of those who bled on these streets, and with those who STILL will not be moved.